The Kompong Speu Provincial Court on Sunday charged three family members in relation to an acid attack in which a woman doused her husband’s lover with battery acid, according to Sam Sak, chief of the province’s serious crimes bureau.
The woman who initiated the attack, Chhom Savon, 34, was still at large and being sought by police, he said.
Mr. Sak said that after questioning the suspect’s sister, brother and mother, the investigating judge decided to charge all of them in relation to the attack on Seng Sreyla, 27. Chhom Savang, 37, was charged with intentional acts of violence for conspiring with her sister, while Huy Ran, 66, the mother, and Chhom Savuth, 28, the brother, were both charged as accomplices to intentional violence, he said.
All three were sent to the provincial prison to await trial.
“The court charged the mother and brother as accomplices because both of them stood and watched and didn’t try to stop it,” Mr. Sak said.
Ms. Savang faces a two- to five-year prison sentence and a maximum fine of 10 million riel, or about $2,500, according to the acid control law. Ms. Ran and Mr. Savuth were charged under the Criminal Code, which stipulates that accomplices stand to receive the same sentence as the perpetrators.
The sisters allegedly attacked Ms. Sreyla with a half-liter of battery acid last Tuesday afternoon in Samraong Tong district’s Ralaing Kroeul commune after she apparently broke a promise —secured with $300—to stop seeing Ms. Savon’s husband.
Ms. Sreyla was sent to receive treatment at a Phnom Penh hospital after the attack.
It is the second acid attack this year, with a 25-year-old woman accused the previous week of dousing her ex-boyfriend and his fiancee with acid as they were driving a motorbike.
